Almost five months after nearly dying during a freak accident at a church’s “pumpkin chuckin” event, a Hall County teenager has fully recovered.
Jacob Stevens, 16, has a long list of people he wants to thank, starting with the first responders and emergency medical technicians. His recovery story was one of two featured at the 11th annual Northeast Georgia STEMI Summit on Friday, which highlighted everyone who played a role in saving his life.
“You see how it went from a 911 call to me being taken in the ambulance,” Stevens told AJC.com.
On Halloween around 8:45 p.m., Oakwood police responded to the Cornerstone Assembly church on Atlanta Highway after Stevens was hit in the chest by a pumpkin he attempted to fire from a large slingshot device, AJC.com previously reported. Stevens said one of his doctors spoke at the summit about the initial prognosis he had to give to Stevens’ parents that day.
MORE: Teen seriously hurt while firing pumpkins at church Halloween event
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
“One of the cardiologists talked about how he knew he had to talk to my family about either one of two things: I was going to die, or I would live with a lot of (recovery) to go,” Stevens said.
Dr. Prad Tummala, another one of his cardiologists, said Stevens underwent commotio cordis, which is when the heart rhythm is disrupted by a chest impact. When asked if he’s ever seen it happen from a pumpkin before, he said “no, and I hope I never see it again.”
For children and teenagers, he said commotio cordis is more common at youth baseball games, where a player may get hit in the chest with the ball. Tummala said that’s why teaching children CPR can save lives.
A man working at the church when the incident happened knew CPR, which exponentially helped Stevens’ odds of survival.
“CPR kept (Stevens’) brain alive,” Tummala said. “And his heart went from a wiggling bag of worms that wasn’t pumping blood anywhere to working properly after an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) was used.”
Jason Grady, the regional STEMI coordinator at Northeast Georgia Medical Center, said bystander CPR is critical in saving brain function, since every minute of cardiac arrest prevented increases the patient’s suitability by 10 percent.
“(First responders) are just the first link in a long link of survival,” Grady said. “Everything we work at is to work on how to get that patient that care as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
STEMI (ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction) is a severe and deadly type of heart attack that requires rapid response and treatment. The Northeast Georgia Regional STEMI System works with 18 counties and their emergency medical services to improve heart attack response times, according to its web page.
When Stevens arrived at the hospital in critical condition, he was placed on a ventilator and ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) machine. Tummala said the machine, which pumps blood through an artificial lung, was a last-ditch effort to try to improve Stevens’ condition — and it worked.
In fact, it worked incredibly well. Stevens said he was told he would need to stay in the hospital for about two months, but he progressed quickly enough to be released after only 12 days.
“I believe prayer played a factor with how many people were praying,” Stevens said. “It acted as a healing aura.”
RELATED: Teen injured at 'pumpkin chuckin' event breathing on his own, 'cracking jokes'
A GoFundMe page was previously set up to benefit Stevens' family. As of Monday afternoon, it had raised more than $8,100.
In other news:
About the Author
